


history throws its shadow over the beginning

by procrastinatingbookworm



Series: Little Beast (Jonah Week 2020) [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Ghosts, M/M, Melancholy, Sex, Trans Elias Bouchard, Trans Jonah Magnus, Trans Male Character, if you technically still have him, introspective, sex with ghosts, you don't have to grieve the lover you left for dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24730285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procrastinatingbookworm/pseuds/procrastinatingbookworm
Summary: “Ah,” Barnabas sighs, when he sees Jonah.Jonah loosens his tie, slowly unknotting it. “You don’t seem pleased to see me.”“I was sleeping.”Jonah tosses his tie onto his desk, sheds his jacket, toes off his shoes. “You’re dead, darling. All you do is sleep.”“Unless I’m entertaining you.”Jonah bares his teeth in a grin. “Nothing’s changed, then.”
Relationships: Barnabas Bennett/Jonah Magnus
Series: Little Beast (Jonah Week 2020) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788130
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30
Collections: Jonah Magnus Week 2020





	history throws its shadow over the beginning

Jonah Magnus isn’t a particularly sentimental man. Nor is he a romantic, nor does he often find himself nostalgic.

The longer he lives, and the further behind he leaves the circumstances of his original life, the more grateful he finds himself for the things those whose first and only life this is take for granted.

Indoor plumbing, for one. Often non-fatal medical procedures. Digital spreadsheets. The capability to medically transition.

But despite the indulgence and gratefulness with which Jonah pinches his side and injects himself with the testosterone Elias Bouchard had so patiently bargained and cajoled and cried and paid for, there are certain things that even the caveats of modern technology can’t replace.

Peter Lukas could tell you that the office of the Head of the Magnus Institute is an incredibly Lonely room, and not for any reason to do with the man who spends his time there—though he is Lonely too.

The office is Lonely because Barnabas Bennett, in the last hours of his life, wandered to the version of the Magnus Institute contained in the Forsaken, sat down at the desk that perfectly mirrored the one in the real world, that still sits in the office to this day, set pen to paper, laid his head down on the table to rest a moment, and died.

With assistance from Mordechai Lukas, Jonah Magnus retrieved Barnabas’ bones from the Lonely, and kept them in that desk from then onward.

Since Barnabas’ death, the Institute has moved, of course. But the desk had gone with it, from Edinburgh to London, carefully up winding stairs with the assistance of two burly delivery-men with heavy Cockney accents.

When Jonah  _ is _ feeling nostalgic, it’s to that desk he goes. It still sits in the center of the office, perfectly polished, well-maintained despite its age. He locks the door to his office, unlocks the bottom drawer of the desk, and takes out the skeleton of Barnabas Bennett.

At first, he had simply kept the bones collected in a box, sometimes taking the skull out to place on the desk or on a shelf, simply to disturb anyone who happens to come by to  bother him discuss work-relevant information.

More recently, Jonah’s strung the bones together with wire. He doesn’t have the full skeleton, but he has enough of a shape to suggest a person; to suggest Barnabas.

Jonah drapes the skeleton’s arms over his shoulders, pushing the drawer shut with his foot and stepping into the middle of the room. 

Carved into the center of Barnabas’ sternum is a shape, vaguely suggestive of an anemone flower. 

With a pen-knife, not quite as antique as the desk but of the same persuasion, Jonah cuts into the ball of his thumb and smears blood onto the carving.

The bones in his arms glow a soft blue, suddenly borne up by themselves. Jonah lets his arms fall to his sides, and waits for what is not quite flesh and not quite hair and not quite clothes to form around the wire-strung skeleton.

“Ah,” Barnabas sighs, when he sees Jonah.

Jonah loosens his tie, slowly unknotting it. “You don’t seem pleased to see me.”

“I was sleeping.”

Jonah tosses his tie onto his desk, sheds his jacket, toes off his shoes. “You’re dead, darling. All you do is sleep.”

“Unless I’m entertaining you.”

Jonah bares his teeth in a grin. “Nothing’s changed, then.”

Barnabas gives him a sad, soft look, and starts undoing his cravat.

The kiss is sweet and deep, but barely tangible. Jonah doesn’t mind. Since Barnabas died, he’s learned to live on these kinds of scraps—echoes of ghosts of long-lost lovers.

Jonah waits for Barnabas to approach him before he reaches out, pushing the coat off his shoulders and starting to unbutton his shirt. Barnabas sighs, put-upon, nuzzling into Jonah’s throat.

He feels like a living man, except for the chill of him. Jonah lays his hands against Barnabas’ bare chest, shivering. Neither of them can be sure if it had been death or the Lonely that sapped the heat from Barnabas, only that he hasn’t been warm since.

They undress each other still standing there in the middle of the room, clothes puddling around them, never quite making eye contact.

Jonah sinks to his knees. He always ends up on his knees, when he summons Barnabas from his grave. Sometimes he sucks him off, with no thought to his own arousal. Sometimes he simply watches as Barnabas gets himself off, empty-eyed and indulgent, until Barnabas spills onto his face, his seed stinking of salt.

Today, Barnabas kneels with him. He presses one hand between Jonah’s legs, pressing the heel of his palm against his cock, and finally looks Jonah in the eyes.

Jonah always used to look away, when Barnabas met his gaze. Now, he simply stares back, something empty behind his expression, and grinds into Barnabas’ hand.

“You’re ill,” Barnabas says, with no malice—only pity, which is worse, as he works his thumb and fingers to bring Jonah to completion. “You’ve a vicious malady, my angel, it rots behind your eyes.”

By the time Jonah comes, Barnabas is gone.


End file.
